Question Period Note: Critical Minerals

• Critical minerals are in increased global demand and are needed to advance high technology, national defense and the transition to a low-carbon future.
• Canada is a secure and sustainable supplier of critical minerals.
• Canada is working with its allies to consider options to secure global supply chains for critical minerals to ensure that the inputs to advanced manufacturing remain available.
The Canada-US Joint Action Plan on Critical Minerals Collaboration:
• Critical minerals are essential to the economies and national security of Canada and the United States.
• In 2019, Canada and the US committed to developing a joint action plan on critical minerals collaboration to improve mineral security, strengthen the competitiveness of our industries and support secure and reliable supply chains.
• The US is heavily reliant on imports for several critical minerals. Canada is the leading supplier of 13 of the 35 minerals that the US has identified as critical.
Rare earth elements in Canada:
• Global allies are looking to Canada as an important future source of the rare earth elements that are key inputs for permanent magnets used in electric motors and wind turbines, among other applications.
• Canada’s reserve potential for rare earths is estimated to be at least 15.4 million tonnes, positioning us to be able to supply the growing global demand.
• Our government has committed $16 million over six years (2015-2021) to develop metallurgical processes for our rare earth element ores to improve processing efficiency, support Canadian regulations and improve understanding of Canadian deposits.

Canada’s allies are concerned about reliance on non-market economies for the minerals and metals required for their manufacturing and defense industrial bases – ‘critical minerals’. Canada has the potential to serve as an important supplier of these minerals and metals, and to develop associated downstream industries. The EU, the U.S., Japan and Australia are beginning to consider what steps governments can take in cooperation to secure supply chains to ensure that critical mineral inputs are available for sensitive and high technologies used in global defense, renewable energy and advanced manufacturing.

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